Finland says gas pipeline and telecoms cable damaged
OSLO, Oct 10 (Reuters) - A subsea gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia has sustained damage, and the location of the outage has been identified, the Finnish prime minister's office said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Balticconnector link was shut early on Sunday on concerns that gas was leaking from a hole in the 77-km (48 miles) pipeline. Finnish operator Gasgrid said it could take months or more to repair.
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A fault has also been found in a telecommunications cable between Finland and Estonia, the government said.
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo will hold a press conference at 1430 GMT, his office said on Tuesday.
Finnish daily Iltalehti, citing Finnish security sources, said investigators believed the outage may have been caused by a deliberate act.
Swedish public radio, citing Finnish government sources, separately reported that the pipeline damage did not occur naturally.
No potential causes for the outage could be ruled out for the time being, including sabotage, a spokesperson for Estonian gas system operator Elering said on Monday.
The pipeline between Inkoo in Finland and Paldiski in Estonia crosses the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea that stretches eastwards into Russian waters and ends at the port of St Petersburg. (Reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm and Marta Frackowiak in Gdansk; editing by Gwladys Fouche)